Is technology the answer to NHS bed and staff shortages?

A range of new technologies, including apps, are being made available for hospital patients to monitor their healthcare from home.

It’s hoped the technology can be used to help speed up recovery as well as free up hospital beds and reduce waiting times.

The use of so-called ‘virtual wards’ is not a new concept but it is a key part of the NHS urgent and emergency care recovery plan, which was announced earlier this year, with a goal of treating up to 50,000 patients a month.

Chris Fielding is a cardiac patient at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton.

Living with a heart condition can be challenging and often includes close monitoring by doctors and nurses of things like blood pressure, heart rate, exercise and medication.

'It's like actually having this sort of cardiac rehab team just on call 24 hours a day'

Chris can now do all of this virtually from his home, via an app that provides the tools for rehabilitation, medication management and more.

“It's like actually having this sort of cardiac rehab team sort of just on call 24 hours a day, everything's there,” Chris said.

“And for people like me, there's checklists in there. There's checklists about the medication I take, making sure that I take it every day. I've got a memory like a sieve. So I keep forgetting.”

Amie Cooper is one of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Sisters at the hospital.

Amie Cooper talks through the app's uses

She says the app allows patients to keep on top of their healthcare plan at home and set reminders for face-to-face appointments.

"They're able to track their activity, their walking activity and they're able to track their blood pressure so they can pop their blood pressure on there and see what's going on," she said.

"They can also monitor their weight and their height and obviously keep an eye on BMI because that's obviously important."

"And they can also put appointments on here as well. So it's reminding them to come to appointments," she added.

The new era of digital healthcare is an ‘exciting' opportunity

• Pictures from BT

“We were involved in the cooperation and the design of the partnership approach, we're a long-standing partner of the NHS and that's the way we intend to carry on,” Professor Sultan Mahmud, the director of Healthcare for BT, the developers, said.

“So with the right people, right ethos and the right kind of processes and technology. I think this could be really exciting.”

It comes as research by BT found that 74% of NHS staff agreed that technology helps to deliver better quality care, while the current standard of technology was listed as a source of stress for 49% of respondents.

At the beginning of this year, NHS England reported over 14,000 beds were taken up by patients who no longer needed to be in hospital - with 81.9% of hospital beds in England occupied on average.

It’s hoped the new technology will help to free up beds and reduce waiting times - but it is argued that it doesn't address key issues and technology cannot replace hospital care.

Does the technology address the root cause of bed and staff shortages?

Dr John Puntis is an experienced doctor who retired from the NHS in 2018.

He says the use of technology to support patients at home doesn’t address bed shortages faced by the NHS, nor can it reduce the demand for hospital staff.

“You have to put this initiative in the context of what's going on in the NHS at the moment” Hhe said. "And the reason for virtual wards is that there aren't enough beds in the hospital.

“So we now lack bed capacity, and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine is saying we need 13,000 more hospital beds to help alleviate the current crisis.”

A government spokesperson told ITV News that these kinds of technology can be used to enhance healthcare.

They said: “There is growing evidence that virtual wards are a safe and efficient alternative to hospital care - and that the NHS is expanding the number of hospital beds and plans to recruit and retain more staff.”